


plastic flowers

by haemophilus



Series: I Could Never Rescue You [2]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcoholics Anonymous, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Viral Hepatitis, clinic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-10-20 09:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haemophilus/pseuds/haemophilus
Summary: Dennis's life choices catch up to him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. . .yeah anyway I wasn't sure where to put this thing. It's part of the series it's attached to but also can stand on its own I think. I couldn't figure out where to put this in a narrative but I also didn't want it to die in a folder.

The free STI clinic that Dennis ended up going to reeked of desperation and fresh paint. The walls of the waiting room were beige and covered in framed pictures of beaches. This was the only part of the room where anyone seemed to have put in any effort. Dennis’s chair was hard plastic, and the magazines available to read were at least three years old. The pen Dennis was given to fill out his paperwork with had a plastic flower taped to the end of it to prevent people from stealing it. Judging by the degenerates sharing the room with him, theft was a reasonable fear. However, it seemed very unfair that he of all people wouldn’t be trusted with a normal pen. His irritation at the unwieldy pen grew as he filled out a questionnaire on risky behaviors. Fuck it. He had to contest this sort of treatment.

Dennis smoothly sidled up to the middle-aged secretary’s desk, flashed her a winning smile, and placed the pen on her desk.

“Are you done with your paperwork?” she asked.

“No,” said Dennis. “I’ve run into a little bit of a snag. You gave me the wrong pen.”

The secretary gave him a quizzical look. “Did it run out of ink?”

“It has a flower on the end of it,” said Dennis.

“All of our pens have flowers on the end,” said the secretary.

Dennis resisted the urge to yell at her for being dense. Instead, he leaned in, and turned up the charm. He glanced at the name on her desk.

“Marge, is it?”

“Yeah. . .” she said.

“Marge,” he purred. “You and I both know that that isn’t true.”

Marge pointed at the cup of pens on the desk. “Yes, it is. They all have flowers taped to the end. Even I use them.”

“I understand that you’re not used to people of my social standing coming to your clinic, but I’m not a petty thief. I can handle a regular pen,” said Dennis.

“Well, we don’t have any. So, you’re either going to have to use your own pen or use the ones we have,” said Marge.

Dennis unbuttoned two of his top buttons. He leaned in even further. “Are you sure there’s not anything at all that could change your mind?”

Marge raised her eyebrows. “Unless you want to be kicked out for sexual harassment, I suggest you sit down immediately.”

Dennis gave her a scathing look. Rage boiled up inside him; she would deserve it if he screamed at her right now. However, there was the very serious problem of his goddamn yellow skin, and it would be pretty stupid for him to get kicked out of the clinic over a pen.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. Then, he swiped the pen back off the desk, and marched away.

Dennis sat back down, and looked at his paperwork again.

_How many drinks do you have per week?_

His stomach turned at the request for such personal information. Clearly, whatever he answered would be used to judge his character. He wrote down ‘two.’

_Do you use hard drugs?_

‘No,” he lied.

_Do you engage in risky sexual behaviors (i.e. sex without a condom or multiple partners)_

God, what a judgmental clinic. ‘Rarely.’

He lied for about twenty more questions, and then finally, he was finished. Dennis brought the clipboard and the stupid pen back to the secretary, and dropped them on the desk from high enough that there was a small clatter that startled her.

“I’m done,” he said.

The secretary adjusted her glasses, and nodded. “The doctor will be with you shortly.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is again just a short thing that was dying in my folder.

The fact of the matter was – Dennis didn’t need to be in AA.

Sure, maybe he drank a little too much and, yeah, he probably had maxed out his limit on recreational drug use for one lifetime but he wasn’t a goddamn addict. He glowered from a corner with his stupid Styrofoam cup of disgusting coffee as people poured into the meeting. Most of the people who entered were men, and the majority of them looked to be over the age of forty. None of the women who entered ranked above a three in Dennis’s book; they too were much older than Dennis. When the boiling anger at the degeneracy before him became too much, he looked down into his coffee instead. A dim reflection looked back at him; it, thankfully, disguised the most recent addition to his normally perfect features: jaundice.

The source of Dennis’s ghastly affliction wasn’t from imbibing too much alcohol. No, this was entirely someone else’s fault. Some asshole who had refused to use a condom had given him Hepatitis B when he was desperate enough for cash to not say no. Of course, there were too many assholes who had refused to play by his very basic rules back then. Otherwise, that son of a bitch would be dead and at the bottom of the Schuylkill River right now. Dennis smiled, a little, at the thought of mystery man’s decomposing corpse. Then he remembered where he was, and his brief happiness faded.


End file.
